Lay Your Hands On Me
by DREAMIRIS
Summary: John had never expected to find himself on Sherlock's doorstep. . . yet, here he was, saying things to him that made no sense to even himself. There had been warning bells in his head, but he had the situation in control, didn't he? After all, he was a bloody teacher. *A oneshot from If I Could Only universe*. Slash, porn. LOTS OF PORN WITH FEELS. COMPLETE for now.


**A redo of the ending Chapter 14 through Chapter 16****_ (the infamous night)_**** of one of my unilock stories called If I Could Only. My brain is hibernating and I'm in a stage of my yearly cycle where my brain takes a walk (to hibernate) down the hall, so excuse me for being late with the next update for the main story. I had written two drafts for chapter 19, but all of them read so unsatisfactory that I just dumped them and decided to let it rest.**

**I figured that because everyone hates John so much in that fic (not always, but especially after what happened here), I should give them John's POV as well because I think that in that fic, John is the most admirable character (well, not as much as Molly maybe). Yes, you didn't misread it. Maybe yeah, he was reckless and a little cruel (okay, a lot, LOT cruel), but then any normal person would do what John did.**

**This might (please pay attention to MIGHT) develop into a series of missing scenes and stuff. . . but for the time being, this is a oneshot.**

**By the way, this is just unbeta'd porn (and John's POV). So if you're below 16 OR if you hate explicit stuff, do me a favour and CLOSE this window instead of reporting this and getting this deleted. This is important for other readers who hate John here.**

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A night in a club is always the best way to let. . . _things_, shall we put them together under such a tame and innocent label as things, travel away to the tiny crook of a man's mind, and let alcohol befuddle the miserable reminder of the cold, empty bed awaiting when they get home.

That is absolutely not the story of his life, John protests most vehemently. He hasn't touched alcohol since he got here, well he did touch the sweating jug of beer, but only to the extent where his fingers only trace the ring of water formed as a result of the condensation. He isn't going to drink again, he tells himself. He isn't going to turn into Harry, he knows he isn't going to because once he starts drinking, he just can't stop, can't stop thinking about him, about Sherlock, about the wretched feeling in him when he sees him every day in university and lets his heart take a break after having beat against his ribs for years.

He knows he is never going to admit it to his sobered mind, but Sherlock literally occupies every single damn corner of his mind right now. Sherlock always does that, taking the space out of a room he deliberately walks into and forcing all the attention towards himself like the glare, the focus of the spotlight in a dimly-lit theatre. He does the exactly same thing with John's mind. And he hates it, he hates the miserable feeling in the lecture room when he is squashed between the chalkboard and the ten or twenty desks between himself and His Majesty perched on the last bench watching him, making John aware that he is there, present and more or less thinking about him.

And, in return, John is thinking too.

He wonders if this is how Sherlock feels, constant thoughts drumming and flooding his mind, feeling right on edge, flipped out, cranked up and restless, unstable.

He wonders how he can take it every day. He wonders how he himself can take this business of teaching.

John has no love for his job. At all. He hates it, he hates the job that has him imprisoned in a gilded cage of a "nation-builder". Not that he hates it because of his students. He adores them, in fact, the young brilliant ones teaching him things way beyond what his generation has read of. He adores all of them (okay, most of them), particularly the seniors even though those are the most obnoxious ones.

But particularly the second year batch.

Particularly a tall, lanky, dark haired boy in the second year batch, who always complains of tests and how unimportant they are in the grand scheme of things.

He despises the space between them, the sheer number of molecules constituting it, the obligation that he _has_ to treat Sherlock like any other student in his classroom, the way he has to register his presence while exuding a facade of complete detachment.

No, John has always wanted to do something for the country, as in something noble, brave, glorious, worth fighting for. Like holding his head high in attention, back straight, chin up and knowing that he was one in a million, and one among a million at the same time. Not like sitting behind a desk with his shoulders slouched and his spectacles muddling his vision.

Something worth dying for, he would've wanted to do that, to feel that satisfaction that you're protecting someone, something that belongs to you, something that you believe in.

He gets that satisfaction when he saves Sherlock from a certain bully, or from the Dean, or from the rest of his peers who hold some grudge or other against him. He knows, sees why. Sherlock is a bit (well, 'a bit' is a bit of an understatement) inconsiderate when it comes to other people, and yet so altruistic sometimes. That's the just the way he is, full of contradicting traits, like the one time he had persuaded Harry to take up rehab, even though it was cruel the way he had accomplished that. But John did believe in the ends-justifying-the-means principle.

Sherlock is inconsiderate even when it comes to John. Well, sometimes he really is. Sherlock keeps pressing him, always the one to tell John that he was an idiot not to listen to what he really, really wants. John tells him that no, he doesn't want Sherlock, doesn't want to even date Sherlock and that he is the straightest creature on the planet. Because he is. He really is.

He has always loved women and their soft, full curves. He has always loved running his hands over their backs, over the smooth texture of their skin, or their soft, luscious lips and their supple, full breasts. Sherlock isn't that. Sherlock is all lines and angles and infuriating cheekbones and well-developed muscles. In spite of all the flirting and the perverted innuendos, it's ridiculous to even think of a man like Sherlock undone by lust, moaning like a whore. . . let alone the idea of John fucking him on all fours.

And yet his alcohol-dissolved mind dreams on laying his hands on Sherlock's hips, of arching his back and kissing him, feeling the solid, grounding sensation of Sherlock's muscular body against him, of the frantic closeness with him, of feeling Sherlock's hands on his aching cock, his mouth and the wanton feeling of looking into his dark coal-like smouldering eyes blown apart with lust as Sherlock blew him.

The thought itself makes him half-hard.

He isn't gay.

The ceaseless thrumming of the music barely reaches his ears. This is where he has ended up, to "clear his thoughts, and try a last resort to purge his mind of Sherlock. All his mates are currently ogling at the stripper now taking off a boot as red as a tomato off her smooth shaven, nice and shapely legs. She winks at John, and fixes her gaze upon John's unfocused eyes. John simply shoves a ten pound note in her direction to leave him alone. She accepts the measly offering and leaves him alone for good.

He really doesn't want to be here. But the strip club comes closest to taking his mind off Sherlock. Because that is the one thing a single man is allowed, isn't he? He does not dare to date at all after his "study date" with Sherlock, if one could call it that, after having missed his presence so much over the Christmas holidays. He has never missed any person like that, wishing daily for their larger-than-life presence beside him when he knows that Sherlock is two-and-a-half hours away from King's Cross and that it would be terribly inappropriate for a teacher to just pack his things and set out towards Lincolnshire to see his student during his Christmas holidays.

But since when Sherlock has cared about what was appropriate? At any rate, all John needed was cash, his toothbrush, clean underwear, a bit of clothes to stave the cold off, and his own constitution (and perhaps some camouflage clothes to spy on him, maybe). He isn't sure how Sherlock's family would react to him. Not very cordially, he can already imagine. Of course, his presence would be an intrusion for the Holmes family.

It strikes him that he has never met Sherlock's family, whereas Sherlock has done more than just meeting his.

Even if he is completely single and not in an exclusive relationship with him, he still feels like he would be cheating on Sherlock if he went for sex even with someone who meant nothing to him. He has once seen the flicker of bemusement, something that John is not used to at all seeing as how sure Sherlock is of everything, followed by hurt on Sherlock's face when he had once ended up with a date in front of him, and even all the women in the world put together are not worth John being on the receiving end of the look of disappointment on Sherlock's face.

He remembers the blatant frankness and the unintentional selflessness in Sherlock, the way he had let his old memories of his own interventions come to surface while helping Harry, persuading her for rehab. Sometimes, what Sherlock does for him is so. . . overwhelming that it feels like it is flooding him from in and out, like there's this heavy thing sitting on his chest that doesn't move an inch, and doesn't let John move as well. It does feel good, so good to be overwhelmed like that, if he were to be frank with himself.

"Oi, John!" One of his mates chuckle, "Can't handle it, can you?"

"Lightweight," teases another of them. John wonders how his mates would react if they knew that he had been thinking about a male student of his in a strip club.

Damn Sherlock! He rises up, bolting out of there, with no particular destination in mind except to get as far away as possible from wherever he happens to be at any given moment. He doesn't know why he's thinking of Sherlock so much today. Naturally he doesn't, not all that much, without drink. No, he isn't taking to drink. There is no reason to. It was only on the New Years' Eve that he had got inebriated, seriously inebriated.

He looks at a man drinking smoke from a cigarette. He thinks of Sherlock. He looks up at the very few stars twinkling, it reminds him of Sherlock's spectacular ignorance. He looks at his hands. It reminds him of Sherlock. He looks at a small car swerving along the snow on the road. He thinks of Sherlock and his stupid radio again.

He's stopped seeing women, he has not had sex for almost a month now. And there was Sherlock, playing happy couples with that James Moriarty, John thinks, telling himself that he sees through it all. That this is Sherlock's pathetic plan to make him jealous. Well, it certainly wasn't working. No, it wasn't and he needs to shove the satisfaction in his face that it doesn't.

Big whoopee, so that is the genius called Sherlock Holmes' grand plan: seduce John, and then make him jealous? John doesn't realise why Sherlock is so bloody persisting about this. Maybe because he is refusing him so much? . . . Yeah well, today is be the last time he is going to refuse Sherlock bloody Holmes. After this, even if Sherlock decides to hang himself, he will not care. He will not sway from his resolve, even if it is most inconvenient for him. He is going to be noble and he is going to ask him to stop following him everywhere, he needs to stop staying after class, stop texting or calling his mobile, stop following him to the cafe, and stop ordering his favourite salami sandwich. He keeps repeating them in his head over and over again like a broken record as the streets and shops pass him like a surreal but inconsequential blur, failing to dissuade his quest to end all this tonight, and to quit feeling so bloody guilty when he looks at a woman and thinks how her legs would feel like.

Because if Sherlock can't take this seriously, neither can he. Neither will he.

He is walking on foot, through the cold, through the snow. His lips are chapped, as blue as the coldness with which he prepares his words. He feels like a demon of energy, and within half an hour, he tells himself, it will all be over.

He practices his lies like religion, keeps repeating them over as if they would turn into truth by simply churning them into it. Before he knows it, before he is even fully prepared, he is there, the brass letters '221' glaring at him. The door knocker is tilted to the left, and there are ever-changing shadows falling and travelling on the inner walls on 221B. A very Sherlock-shaped shadow looms over the curtain and John feels his pulse quicken. He has forgotten half his "high and noble" speech.

Nevertheless, he gathers a moment to collect himself, and then with as much energy as he can gather, he transfers it into his fist and bangs it hard on the black door, announcing his presence stalwartly, as if the impact would travel all the way up to Sherlock and land on his nose and teeth.

He doesn't know why he's so angry, or why he's angry at all. He had been missing Sherlock, that's it, even though he isn't ready to accept that. Where had anger come from into the picture all of a sudden? And when?

John sees the shadow freeze, and this time move much more lazily, but not towards the window, instead away from it. Before John can wonder why Sherlock isn't checking up to see who's visiting him, he gets the answer.

"Go away!" comes a voice that is unmistakably Sherlock's, "Mrs. Hudson isn't here!"

John simply sighs, and takes out his phone. He just can't take it anymore. He punches the letters hard into the phone, hunting and pecking for the letters. He hates the QWERTY keyboard, he was much fine with the earlier twelve-key typing pad.

**_I'm downstairs._**

He contemplates adding a 'JW' at the end like Sherlock does, but then he doesn't. He is keen to avoid any kind of individuality with his students, particularly Sherlock. Those seven seconds seem like the longest seven seconds of his life as he waits in the cold, in the snow clinging possessively to his shoes. He doesn't smell of bar and alcohol, check. He took a shower this evening, check. His hair is proper, oh no it isn't, oh bugger!

Sherlock throws open the door, and John feels like he has _closed_ the door right in his face, so hard that he can feel the imaginary slam on his face. Seeing a very domestic Sherlock in the private sanctuary of his residence wearing only his pyjamas and a dressing gown draped over his lithe figure is a complete throw-off for John. Even though John's fingers are so cold that they might snap off from his palm anytime, he feels hot blood ruining his carefully-cultivated bland complexion.

John forces himself to look up at Sherlock's face. It's not closed-off, its completely unguarded, and yet there's no surprise in his face. There's only an infuriatingly blank expression on his features. And a blink as Sherlock's eyelashes flutter close and open, the alertness betraying the impression formed from his languid figure.

"Mr. Holmes." It's a stern greeting, with so many hidden meanings in it, none even miles near how John really feels, that John doesn't even mean to throw in there. Regardless, they're still there, and he watches Sherlock hunt and dissect every single of them.

Sherlock's face is still a blank slate, as if he hasn't found what he is looking for in John's curt greeting. As is his nature, he doesn't theorise or predict without data and therefore, he waits for John to speak further, for more data and continues to look blank. John grits his teeth at that. How can Sherlock act all so innocent about everything when he is the one who began it? How could Sherlock have not seen it coming that John was going to come up to his flat, right where he can have him cornered because a man cannot run away from his own home after all, to tell him to back the fuck off?

Instead Sherlock simply responds with a simple, a completely innocent "Come in". Unlike John, he is still waiting to see how this is going to unfold. Well, John knows and Sherlock doesn't, boo hoo! It will be exactly a nine minute thing, after which he is going to walk out of Sherlock's life and go back to his cold and empty bed and get up the next day and go to St. Bart's to teach anatomy to all those who bother to listen to him. He has this in control.

John wants to tell him that he would rather freeze to death than. . . and then he sees Sherlock barefooted. They are pale, delicate, his feet, with short nails and purple veins rising in his white flesh, like he does a lot of walking and running around. Obviously did not often see the sun, or have much uncovered contact with the ground. Feet are not something that typically would interest John, but because they are so _bare,_ on a man who is usually so covered up and unreachable even though he is the one who keeps telling John that they should be together, it strikes something deep, terrifying inside of him. It feels almost intimate, even compared to all that they've shared together.

John snaps out of it and decides that Sherlock wouldn't want to have the conversation there, out in the cold air inconveniencing him.

"Alright."

Once the door is closed behind them and John is completely at the mercy of the taller man in the sacred space where Sherlock breathes and dwells in, Sherlock waits patiently for John to start, and John almost wishes he had brought hint cards along with him to help him along. If the sight of Sherlock's bare feet can throw him off, John doesn't want to think of what kind of weakling he has become.

And so, to present his grand speech with not even one percent of the original viciousness, he speaks.

"Mr. Holmes. . . you—you need to stop this, alright? Now, you're playing with not just my life, but your life as well. You should understand. . ." he raises his voice when he sees that Sherlock isn't taking even one word seriously. "You're almost being a stalker."

Huh? Did he really just say that?

What happened to why, _why_ he was a stalker? And what he needed to stop doing. . . things that he no longer remembers. John had never expected to find himself on Sherlock's doorstep, he had never expected this to go so far. . . yet, here he is, saying things to him that make no sense to even himself. There are warning bells pealing in his mind. He should just say 'hello' and go away, but he has the situation in control.

Doesn't he? After all, he is a bloody teacher. His teacher.

"You like it," Sherlock slumps back against the banister of the staircase, looking infuriatingly innocent and making it sound like John is the wrong party here. "I see your cheeks flushing with colour every time, and believe me, I don't do anything that you don't want me to—"

That's true, John knows. He does enjoy Sherlock's attentions, he likes how Sherlock makes him feel warm and fuzzy and decidedly un-masculine when he does something unintentionally sweet, like waiting on a date for two weeks—nineteen days, Sherlock's disembodied voice flows in to correct him—or some other stupid things as well.

"Oh yeah?" John challenges him angrily, the bitterness and the feeling of being alone returning in full measure, "You think so? Do you think I wanted to do this, coming out in this horrific weather to confront you, to give you an _deadline_—"

He doesn't dare to think that he had been sitting in a strip club earlier, in the fear that he would let it slip and then only God knows what Sherlock would think of him.

"A deadline!" Sherlock scoffs, imitating him. How dare he imitate him, make fun of _his_ words, because frankly, Sherlock knows nothing of how John feels when he sees him in university every time, leaving poor John alone to accompany the cold chalkboard while sitting arm to arm with that James Moriarty staring at him like he can crawl out of his skin anytime and completely take Sherlock apart. . . the thought itself makes John feel like he's going green with jealousy.

No, he reminds himself, he has this in control. Completely in charge.

Ignoring—and building—the frustration, John cuts across him, "Don't you dare ignore me this time! You want to know, Sherlock Holmes?!" John finally snaps, like a matchstick snapping into two in the harsh wind, like a rope snapping under a heavy weight, after having tried to be patient with Sherlock for months.

"You want to know? Yes, I care! I care about you enough, far too much deeply than you will ever realise, and I'm not going to let you sabotage your future because I care for you, do you get it? Nothing more than that, do you hear me? NOTHING more than that!"

He pauses from his outbreak, and takes a deep breath at that, looking down to control his anger, or is it anger. . . because it does feel as hot as fury can make a man be, but there's something else. . . the feeling that he has exposed himself to Sherlock in a way he would never have in his right mind. . . like he's laid his heart bare for Sherlock to see and take in his hands and do whatever he wants to.

But there's no excuse this time. He is completely in his right mind, not drunk, not high. He is completely himself. Hell, he has planned this all the way during his journey to Baker Street on foot, and now it is falling apart, going the exactly opposite way in which it wants to go. Sherlock always wins, he always does—

No, he reminds himself, he has this in control.

Finally Sherlock speaks.

"Any chance you've had anything strong to drink today?"

John knows why Sherlock is asking this. He wouldn't ask this if he weren't sure. He cannot smell alcohol on John's clothes, and John is super-glad that he cannot, because he doesn't know if he can face Sherlock the day after he ends up drunk at his doorstep. If any.

No, he reminds himself again, he has this in control.

But the look on Sherlock's face is not the one of concern. It is, as John processes it, of mockery, of derision.

"SHUT UP, Mr. Holmes!" He snarls. In his mind, he is already on his feet, praying to his student to not see him as so pathetic, "What do you think you're playing at?! You think you can just try and seduce me—"

"Oooh! You make it sound so conspiratorial," Sherlock sneers, and John feels like throwing in Sherlock's direction the first thing he can lay his hands upon. He simply shoves Sherlock up against the wall angrily.

"You will leave me alone, Mr. Holmes," he puts up a forestalling finger. Sherlock is against the wall, and he could've looked like a wounded, cornered animal, and yet John feels like the one who's losing himself, piece by piece. "And none of your mind games work on me. You don't know the first thing about me." He adds, feeling as naked as the day he was born.

John knows he has crossed a line, a hundred lines when he lets that slip out of his mouth. Sherlock knows everything, he is omniscient, and if he weren't in front of him in human form, John would've thought he was some God.

No, John thinks uselessly, he has this in control.

Sherlock's slacker expression hardens, and John has never seen him more terrible. "I have always known you better than you know yourself," he says, straightening up and taking a step towards him. "And I always will."

John jerks back, his eyes widening, feeling bewildered at the space between them decreasing rapidly. "You're a fool," he snarls a last valiant attempt at his mission which lies unattended somewhere at a last corner of the mind to which he has previously attempted to exile Sherlock to.

Such a fool, that's what he is. Sherlock occupies, _owns_ his whole mind. He cannot limit him to just a dilapidated corner.

He has this in contro—

John tries to turn away but Sherlock's hand grips his wrist very tightly, too tightly, encircling his wrist completely. He tries to yank himself free but Sherlock's grip is surprisingly strong. He pulls John roughly around to face him, this time his eyes burning, the veins standing out like whipcord, his neck muscles tautening deliciously and his lips pursing. He is so close to him and he can feel Sherlock's hot breath mingling with the air he's forcing down his trachea, and it feels terribly, _terribly_ intimate, the action of sustaining on shared breath. Blood is singing in John's ears so loudly that it is excruciating to listen to, that it sounds like his eardrums are being torn apart, that it sounds like tyres screeching on tar road.

Out of control.

Since the first time he had come here, he sees the enormity of everything, and how everything else seems so much smaller, so insignificant in comparison to it. Sherlock has always said that he trusts him, and now panic and jolt shoots through him as the look on Sherlock's face became mingled with something approaching desperation and urgent need.

The enormity of the situation piles itself onto John, and makes him almost gasp for air. Sherlock trusts him, although he has said this a lot of times and expressed it in ways that even he himself doesn't know. He's never felt so honoured, and yet so terrified and put-upon. It is a realization that he has come to only recently—within the last twelve seconds, actually—but it feels like he knows it with a deep certainty, like he knows that his name is John Watson.

"What. . . are you. . ." John manages to stammer, while the muscles in his mouth rapidly shut down as Sherlock bends forward, the course happening in slow motion, like glaciers moving over one another, rapidly decelerating as if time would stop right when the space between them slams together into nothingness. He now can't pretend anymore that he doesn't want this, can't pretend anymore that he had come to simply ask Sherlock to back off, because Sherlock would never back off. . . that's as far as he has known him, and deep inside, he already knew that his visit would be pointless, but nevertheless, he came, didn't he?

Without warning, one of Sherlock's hands suddenly tighten around the nape of his neck and force him forward. A second later, John closes his eyes on his own accord and his mouth comes abruptly into contact with Sherlock's warm, humid mouth and inside of him it is as though every emotion that had been kept locked up in Pandora's box were now free to wreak havoc. He feels like he has hit his head on a boulder, and is now lying dead somewhere in a cornfield where cows, cheetahs and the police are brooding over him.

Something deep and terrifying knots in John's gut and tries to force itself out of his throat.

"Sherlock. . ."

He moans softly, despite himself, despite what he has always tried to fight. The sound is embarrassing, and he knows Sherlock is probably laughing at him at the back of his head for melting into it like a woman, but then Sherlock backs a little and brushes his lips with John's again, so honey-slow like a cloud drifting when there's no wind, so shy and so _electric,_ this time really driving everything out, be it the thoughts in John's head or the space between them. How the hell can he do this? He came here to tell him to back the fuck off, not to try and lick the roof of his mouth? He has been fighting himself for days, months, not willing himself to give in to Sherlock. How can he do this?

He no longer pretends to himself that he doesn't know this is here where it was all headed, that this is what he really came for, that this had all been inevitable from the start, from the moment he had laid eyes on Sherlock for the first time, the moment Sherlock had seen him.

His stomach clenches, his lungs contract, his insides twist, feeling like something has his limbs and his whole body in strings and now is pulling at him like stars did, under gravity. He feels like he's going into multi-organ failure, ending with his brain, which fails to keep up with all that happens in him simultaneously, until only one thought prevails in his head.

For the first time, a man's mouth is on his.

Not just by a meaningless accident. By fate. By everything John hasn't believed in since he was denied a choice to live the life of glory in the Army. It's a kiss.

A man is kissing him. And he, against everything, is kissing him back.

Not just any man. It's Sherlock, the unreachable, the mysteriously down-to-earth man that John previously thought he couldn't touch even if he extended his hand to him. His student. He knows its Sherlock. There's cigarette smoke, mint toothpaste, even the bitter gourds that he had once asked Sherlock to order for himself despite the fact that he knew that Sherlock had a non-existent appetite.

This is Sherlock he is kissing. He can repeat this sentence to himself a thousand times, and it still feels different every time. A new warmth blossoms in some deserted corner of his heart each time John repeats it in his mind and before John knows it, Sherlock has it all, just like Sherlock owns his mind, like John has sold him, sellen him it. If Sherlock was the Devil striking deals and offering hollow temptations, he would not ask only for John's soul.

He would own everything.

And he does, Sherlock doesn't know and John will never tell him, but he does. John knows that he hasn't known Sherlock for even a year, hardly six months, but somehow Sherlock is there everywhere in his mind, slotted away in every corner, in every memory. He is there with him the first time he learnt how to drive a bicycle, he's the one kissing John during his first kiss with a girl in the park when he was twelve, he's there sitting beside John troubling him during a late night study session before the test next day. He's there pointing out errors in his textbook and playing rugby along with him and there in the hospital trying to make him laugh when his shoulder had been almost shattered open by a rogue knee.

He's there everywhere.

He's here in his grasp.

It feels so right, so good to be aware of Sherlock's nose drilling into his cheeks, of his lips moving against John's. John opens his mouth and slides a tongue, a flicker, inviting and demanding at the same time, against Sherlock's closed lips. A need for a snatch of breath forces open Sherlock's mouth and John takes the opportunity to open his lips with his and his tongue slips right past the seam of his lips and touches Sherlock's soft, wet, warm, humid tongue, the soft slickness of it.

Oh Jesus.

The world screeches to a halt, turns upside down, downside up trying to gain its rotation back and collides with the sun. John now knows how dizzy he has always been, going around with the world, round and round the garden like a teddy bear as Sherlock always says, and for the first time, he feels like his head's clear of things he has never noticed were there in the first place.

John melts into the vastly overused word called 'feeling'. HIs knees give away and he feels like crumpling to the ground. He forgets his existence, loses himself in Sherlock, in the massage of his fingers in Sherlock's hair, his scalp, his smooth cheeks, the defined edges of his jawline, his column-like neck, his collarbones, the firmness of his chest and back to his hair again. He has never thought of losing himself, never thought of all those synthetic agents. Now he knows why people turn to drugs. He can just pull Sherlock down with himself, but he's still holding on to him and he might just start crying any second.

Sherlock is still kissing him.

It's terrifying.

It is wonderful.

He wants to stand away and watch himself kissing Sherlock, and then tear himself away from him. Sherlock's hands, previously clamped around his waist, move to steady John's enthusiastic kiss, his head, and he slowly wraps his arms around John's shoulders, forcing them together. Never apart.

John's arms encircle Sherlock's waist, running his hands over his back and sinking them into his perfect, supple flesh, and he forces a knee between his parted thighs. He has never felt that way, so touched, so owned. He runs his hands all over Sherlock, still not believing that he is there indeed, that Sherlock caught him as he fell. He feels Sherlock mimic his actions. He's never imagined that this would feel so good, lips red and swollen and wet with another man's saliva, tongues entwining, feeling the distinctive jutting hipbones, the convexity of his shoulders, the concavity of the small of his back followed again by convex at his arse, the _heat_, Jesus the heat of Sherlock's masculine body. He's just hoping that vertigo isn't as frightening as it sounds. The last thing he needs is throwing up.

He forgets that this is still January. The last day of January. Perhaps the last day on earth.

And it still feels incredible to be kissing him. How could he have been waiting for so long, a taste, the sensations about which he had been wondering about since Christmas?

Wondering. . . sounds so childish.

"Upstairs," Sherlock gasps, his breath hot and thickly laced with arousal, and sending an impatient jolt straight to John's cock, "Now."

He can go on hours just kissing him, revelling in the pleasure, massaging the fullness of his arse, but an idea sown into a mind is destructive, all-consuming until it is placated into fulfilment. Just like Sherlock.

John has thought of fucking Sherlock many times, more times than he blinks in a day. In the university, in his classroom, in his office, in a closet, over his desk, over the last bench, thousands of other imaginative places, but never in Sherlock's own place, in the unhindered privacy his own flat, his own guarded territory where he breathes, sleeps, not-eats, perhaps not-sleeps as well. Overall, Sherlock seems so inhuman, especially when John sees him angry, that John sometimes thinks Sherlock doesn't even function like a human being, maybe gets his energy from some sort of solar energy tapping cells or whatever. John has seen Sherlock playful, flirty, sexy, smooth, frank, urgent, irritated, a little confused, wary, careful, completely in charge, and of course, bored. It strikes John that he has never really seen Sherlock happy, or sad or jubilant or scared.

Once he had seen Sherlock angry, and once disappointed, and John was the root of both. Those are the only emotions he remembers.

Both times John had wanted nothing more than to look away from him and remain in a closet till the guilt at having evoking those sentiments went away. Sherlock is just so cut off from the basic sentiments that it frightens John to see him surrendering to it, so serious, so committed, accepting what has always been inevitable between himself and Sherlock. It's like seeing your God come down and live in your house where you're just so anxious to please him that you end up doing everything wrong.

And so John just gives himself away, with the hope, with the trust that Sherlock _will_ make something out of it. He feels Sherlock's back arch when he palms his hardness, he hears the breathy, the needy sounds fall on his ears, he feels the ragged breaths, Sherlock's forehead buried in his neck as John works purple splotches and bruises and bites the pearlescent skin tenderly, the fit of him beyond perfect. He's so _close_ to him, so pressed, and not yet skin to skin. Sherlock is only in his pyjama trousers and John is still in his shirt and his jeans. He has never fumbled with his clothes in his entire life. He has never fumbled with anything at all.

And yet, here he is.

Had John not had other priorities, he would've cast his eyes around, at the little peek into what Sherlock does every day, where he lives, what stairs he uses to go up and down from ground floor to first floor, and back and forth. Even after knowing the man, he is so much like a mystery, but that is mostly John's fault, not to mention the cutting edge of Sherlock's impenetrable barrier, making the man beyond it virtually inaccessible.

It's a fight to reach the first floor. Sherlock attempts to take dominance all the time, to gain the upper hand like he always does, but this time, John tells himself he has had enough. He will show Sherlock who the boss is. Who the teacher is, and who the student.

Student? What the hell is that? John must have gone loony with the brain-freeze outside, or with the brain-fever being in the arms of a feverishly hot Sherlock.

And so, Sherlock's eyes flash onto his, his clear-water like eyes muddled up with arousal. John presses reverent kisses to his forearm, up the sinews, the various puncture marks of his drug days, affirming to Sherlock that he accepts it as a part of what he is. He trails his tongue, his lips and his fingers up the veins and reaches his neck. Sherlock moans and John feels each tendon under his lips vibrate at the sound from his throat. Sherlock begs for more, he literally begs, and the idea of really seeing him undone doesn't seem impossible now. It seems like John just has to pull at the right knot, and the whole thing just topples the chain-reaction like a domino.

Sherlock has him pinned between himself and the wall, and he's so _good_ at dirty talk without even knowing it that even John can't take it, lest he should buckle like a bridge collapsing into sea. John promises him to shag him raw and _senseless,_ yes he uses that brutal adjective, and Sherlock makes the deal with him, if that shudder is anything to do by. Although he has imagined it several times, he has never thought that it would be real one day. He's imagined it slow and intimate, tearing Sherlock apart piece by piece, flesh to tendon to ligament, till nothing remains to be sodomized. He's imagined it real fast and hard and without mercy, putting all the ten fingers into him and screaming without even knowing it.

Just that he's never imagined that it would be real one day.

"Oh Go-uhn!" John's muffle cry rings out in the whole house, and it's truly fortunate that Mrs. Hudson isn't there. With dizzyingly unerring accuracy, John feels the crisp pads of Sherlock's fingers reaching for his left nipple under the fabric of his undershirt and he gives John a positively inhuman pinch.

"Christ, Sher—God!"

"Oh, you bad teacher," Sherlock snorts into his damp skin mixed with sweat and his own saliva, "You've no idea. . . how long I've wanted to do. . . _this_."

John wants him to do this _this _to him, his own words giving rise to a peculiar, heavy sensation in his lower stomach. He loves this _this. _He wants to ask him what the hell a teacher means—

Then Sherlock rids John of his undershirt and John feels a fifty lashes on his back, a white-hot blade cutting into him. The air around them tenses, thick, heavy and _electric,_ the discharge of sparks stopping right in the synaptic gaps of his nerves.

For the very first time, he can feel Sherlock skin-to-skin with him, chest to back, heart beating into his shoulder blade. Every beat of Sherlock's heart feels like a nuclear explosion, as if the delicate skin over it is slowly fading, peeling away, two hard button like nipples, then the musky skin slick with sweat, the epidermal layer, right down to the nerves and finally Sherlock's heart.

A drop of sweat escapes Sherlock's skin, and mingles with John's, making their way down together. John's senses have never been sharper, and the rest of the world never blurrier. They halt for a moment to feel that condensate travel down their flesh together before he feels Sherlock's humid mouth in the hollow between his neck and his shoulder.

His bad shoulder, John notes.

John's fingers entangle in Sherlock's hair again as he tilts his head, resting in on Sherlock's right shoulder. He tosses his head back and rubs his temple with Sherlock's, exhaling and inhaling and failing at keeping up a balance between them. Sherlock rubs over the injury with his tongue, as if the mere action can erase it, can heal the injury. For one moment, it feels like it does, the sensation tingling, shivering, maddening. . .

He's moaning without restrain, calling Sherlock's name, sometimes mispronounced, mostly incomplete, and Sherlock closes the sound with his mouth, like he wants to tear every single sound from his throat and pin it away like a specimen. John is more than amenable to give it away. He melts slowly, into Sherlock's touch, experimental, reverent, touching him like John is a godsend marvel, and its only minutes before he is going to vaporise. John doesn't want to dwell on it. Sherlock tastes a drop of sweat trickling down John's right temple, his fingers reaching down John's arms and finally fitting into the spaces between his, tight and imposing, like two gears fitting together.

John simply takes the reins, and puts the whole tease to a screeching stop.

He has seen Sherlock shirtless before. Well, not technically shirtless, he _was_ wearing a shirt but the rain had rendered it almost transparent. John is an anatomy teacher, for God's sake, he's seen bare chests before, of course he has, but this. . . Sherlock only in his boxer briefs, short of breath, his skin gone horribly splotchy-red and flushed, every fine-boned, creamy-skinned inch of him for display, for taking and all John can think about is tracing his tongue from freckle to freckle, from shoulder all the way to ankle, where a lone circle sits on the very centre of his tendon.

He is embarrassingly hard. Which one of them, John's brain asks uselessly.

Without another second of thought, he pushes Sherlock away suddenly, like a compressed coil shooting out of control. Sherlock's back hits the stairs following an undignified yelp from him as John towers over him, terrible, animalistic before lunging down to smack the air out of Sherlock's lungs.

"Don't you _dare_ use that tone with me." John warns him imperiously. Sherlock is so glorious like this, once revelling in dominance, making John melt right into butter, and then in the twinkle of an eye, becoming all submissive and flinching. It's almost like John can see the wolf in the sheep's skin or the sheep in the wolf's skin, so dynamic is the change from the wolf-bright smile that Sherlock gives him on rare, slightly frightening situations, and into the rabbit cooing now, under him as John slips his thumbs into the band of his boxer briefs. A slight lax, and Sherlock is on top again.

"I don't want anything between us anymore," Sherlock breathes out incoherently, like sending John a secret message through the enemy lines and transceivers, coded and minced, with the intention to be placed together on reception, but John pieces it back anyway. He has never wanted anything between himself and Sherlock too, not ever. He has always despised the fact that he didn't meet Sherlock before he became his professor.

Nevertheless, he's there before that time.

"Stop!" John doesn't know why he exhales that, even if it's just a misused figure of speech. Sherlock sucks harder on the bright red hickey under his jaw and his breath catches at the 'o' of 'stop'. The slurp of his mouth sounds so wanton, so dirty as Sherlock proceeds to disobey him, like always.

"I," lick, "don't," nibble, "want," suck, "to," bite, comes Sherlock's reply.

Even John doesn't want to, he informs him unthinkingly by his teasing grip on Sherlock's cock. John feels like he has been struck by lightning, touching such an intimate area of Sherlock's body. It feels heavy and inexplicable in his grip and Sherlock can snap his legs close anytime but he doesn't. He looks up at him for response and then down again. He has made love to many women in the past, mainly during his university years when he was as free as a bird, he has touched them everywhere there's to be touched and it didn't feel so impossible back then, even during his first time. But then, Sherlock. . . thinking about putting his hands on him is a different thing, and doing it is completely another. It's like dreaming to be have set foot on moon without oxygen or astronaut's suit and then trying to _really_ do it.

Sherlock stops immediately, thrusting his hips up, wanting more of John's touch where no one has surely touched him before. Sherlock is literally trusting John with his body, the one thing that is truly his, and John can't help but feel overpowered by virtual waves and waves of emotion rolling and crashing over him. It doesn't feel as weird and awkward it should have, and it makes John wonder whether he has been secretly gay or even bisexual all these years.

"John."

Seeing a man like Sherlock waiting with his breath stuck in his chest, waiting for John's next move is too much. It sort of makes John feel powerful, like he has a hold over Sherlock and that infuses more confidence into him, into the sudden realisation—the actual realising stage of the realisation—that he is indeed going to make love to a man.

"Thank you," John simpers smugly and Sherlock moans, wriggles under him like a cornered animal. They've somehow reached the couch—John has no recollection of this—and Sherlock has torn away his jeans, leaving him only in his underwear.

"People. . . will see," says he in his best professor voice when Sherlock nips an untouched patch of skin on his throat, right under his jaw. Let him mark him, he can't care anymore, not with the larger forefront of his brain conjuring up visions of Sherlock lying debauched on his palms and knees, pleading under him, pleading for his cock like a whore, but a small, _traitorous_ part of his brain has to think about _people_. Stupid people, people who are the sole reason why he can't be with Sherlock, are the last thing John wants to think about with Sherlock's weeping cock in his grip.

"Let them."

The sound of Sherlock's voice is so normal that John wants to un-hear it and draw it out again with moans and sobs from his beestung lips. He curls the dark patch of Sherlock's pubic hair around his forefinger and sees Sherlock's chest rise abruptly, his belly concave at his navel and his chest expanding over his ribs, his breath hitches like he's been shot.

"Say that again!" John demands from a suffering Sherlock, whose large hands encircle his own smaller ones but they don't push John away. Sherlock tosses his head back and groans as he feels John's hand encroaching on his fully erect member. John sees his toes curling and his knees folding as he wraps his fingers around the glistening shaft, the underside of his palm teasing his bollocks.

Sherlock closes his eyes. John has never seen him do that and it's fascinating.

"Say that again!" His demanding voice rasps. He sucks hard on his nipples, rolling the firm nubs between his tongue, alternating with teeth and looks at Sherlock from under heavy eyes, the way he looks at him from over the tops of his glasses in university, in his lecture room. Sherlock's legs, his thighs wrap around John's waist, an unspoken, obvious invitation. Is Sherlock giving up so easily? No, John isn't going to let him.

John's breathing is coming hard, ragged as he bites down on his lip, watching Sherlock's eyes fly wide open and shut periodically, with each stroke that John inflicts on his cock, each motion screaming_ I want you, I need you, I love you._ John can see beads of tears breaking free out of Sherlock's wet eyes as he sobs and screams for more, for John to stop. The look on Sherlock's face is that of a man dying, his mouth wide open in his last-minute negotiations with God, striking deals with the Devil, reciting his will and an attempt to snatch much-needed oxygen.

"You are not to come," he warns Sherlock, his own voice lost in pleasure as Sherlock whimpers, tossing his head back and looking at John like he's going to murder him, "The only time. . . you're allowed to come. . . is when I'm. . . inside you," John gasps inhumanly, "buried to the hilt."

Sherlock opens his mouth like a dying goldfish, but all that comes out is a gasp, giving in so easily to that which overwhelms him. John is amazed that he is still capable of such hypotheses and inferences. "Do we. . . have an accord?"

He gulps and nods, John rolls his tongue over his left nipple, tasting the saltiness of the trickle of sweat rolling down his abdomen and into his navel, rendering Sherlock's smartarse mouth incapable of words.

He bends over and seals the deal with a heated open-mouthed kiss. Sherlock returns it just as eagerly, his hands groping around for the arm of the sofa and to cradle the back of John's head, raking his nails against his scalp as if to cleave him open. They kiss for a long time, desperate for release yet not willing to snap so quickly.

"Deal."

John's eyes are challenging as he lowers his palm glistening with Sherlock's precome on Sherlock's mouth.

"Lick," he orders.

Sherlock scrambles to obey, running his tongue slowly over the fleshy palm, taking it between his teeth, with tongue attacking his flesh tenderly. John does not make a single noise, only watching him, eyes heavy with arousal as every nerve tingles within him, making him want to seize him and press his lips to his. Sherlock's eyes flicker to his and stay there, and John simply bites down on his lower lip, tasting the metallic tang of blood there. John can feel Sherlock's breath quicken at that, he can feel his steam-like hot breath fall raggedly over his palm shiny with precome and saliva. Sherlock laps at his palm again, taking the soft flesh between his teeth for an electrifying moment. John barely notices the gooseflesh rising on his forearms. Sherlock is blinking steadily as John strokes him slowly, rhythmically this time, bringing the head of his cock against his boner.

Sherlock continues attacking his flesh with teeth and tongue while trailing his fingers over his hand, the veins, the tendons, the spaces between John's fingers, his eyes still fixed on his. There's a wicked pleasure in building up tension that way, because all John now wants to do is wrap himself up in Sherlock so that not one patch of skin is exposed and yet, here he is, refraining from contact, if one could call it that.

Feeling John speed up, Sherlock finishes with a wet kiss on his fingertips and tosses his head back again. John can feel Sherlock's hands migrating southward slowly, and his thumbs disappearing inside the waistband of his boxers. It was a sort of power that he had had on Sherlock till now, Sherlock being fully vulnerable while John still keeping his modesty away. John slaps Sherlock's hand harder that he would have and he retracts his hand helplessly.

"John." He complains.

"Be _obedient,_" John cooes, his hand-inflicted strokes becoming uneven and demanding, and Sherlock is finding more things to grab, to destroy in his iron grip, "Why do you. . . always. . . _disobey_ me? When you're so magnificent like this—"

That proves to be a mistake, as Sherlock literally shoves him away, and John lands on the floor painfully. Before he can react, Sherlock takes a last shot at dominance and is on top of John, pinning him down with his weight. John lets him, after all, he's made a deal hasn't he? Let the poor man take as much as he can before he says "Enough, now drill through me as hard as you can". Let the poor man fool himself for a little while before John fucks him brutal and proper. And if he doesn't keep to the letter. . . only God help him—Oh, Jesus Christ, no don't do that, no I didn't mean it, fucking do that again!

John can feel every single of the five digits on Sherlock's hand pass teasingly over the tell tale bump between his legs. Sherlock is smiling, white teeth gleaming like polished china, his lips swollen from kissing and biting, the sort of smile which can give the Devil a run for his life like a fugitive of critical mass. John's throat grows dry for the hundredth time and his mouth too damn wet.

"Nobody calls me obedient," Sherlock growls, his voice heavy and hoarse and rumbling.

"Sh-Sherlock," he whines helplessly, trying to win his student back by coaxing him. Sherlock is such a good, such a talented student, he tells him, better than the teacher, in fact. John gives him, and he returns it tenfold. He runs his touches, his touches like fire licking at stone, destroying, consuming and leaving nothing but soot behind, all over John, his shivering goosebumps, his hairs standing on end. He knows Sherlock can feel it, and even if his eyes are closed, he knows the smirk that would be adorning his plush lips.

Taking a breath down his throat is so difficult and such an unattractive prospect.

"You came for this, didn't you?" He hisses, a deadly smirk dancing on the corners of his lips as John opens his embarrassingly drooling mouth for a kiss, choking on his own saliva as a moan rises through his throat, "You knew. . . this was going to happen. . . you knew. . . Mrs. Hudson won't be there. . ."

Sherlock bends over him and snakes his tongue out, dipping it inside John's mouth and yet not giving him the satisfaction of the intimacy of joining lips together, making it feel like only a truly dirty act. John grabs his face and tries to kiss him into oblivion, only to feel Sherlock's hands migrating southward again. With a searing look at John, he moves to his neck as John grabs his arse, forcing him harder against him, generating as much friction as possible. He wants Sherlock to keep his deal so that he can torture him as long as he wants to, and yet he wants Sherlock to break it so he can make him come more than once.

John doesn't know which one is more attractive to him.

Sherlock is panting against him like a bull charging towards red and John can feel chunks of dark hair in his trembling grip. Sherlock is just looking into his eyes, breathing into his face, exhaling into his nose and John can't be bothered to process the colour of his eyes. Sherlock on top of him, and he blocks the entire world out for John till he goes cross-eyed, till there's only pale skin and the mystifying darkness.

There's only him. Nobody else.

Sherlock is breathing on his neck again, kissing his entire body sloppily, biting more often as he goes down, pinning John's arms on both sides of him. This time, John is not protesting, not offering him resistance as Sherlock lets go of his arms and plays the game John had been playing with him till now. It takes all the power in the world to stop from gasping out as Sherlock palms his cock through the thin material of his boxers, and the windows don't have curtains drawn on and the door's fucking open and John opens his mouth to point that out to Sherlock that but all that comes out in a moan of pure bliss. Sherlock's mouth stops at his navel and he opens his mouth.

It feels positively sinful, feeling Sherlock's hands on him, feeling a man's hands on him. It feels like it's made for him.

"Don't. . . say. . . " John begins in an effort when he sees Sherlock's mouth opening and he expects him to comment on his cock, and John has no idea what one could say and also, he has no idea how to answer to Sherlock's rude comments. But what he doesn't expected, although he should've seen it coming, is Sherlock opening his mouth and lowering himself to replace his palm with his mouth to lick his erection through the fabric of his boxer briefs.

John lifts a hand, pushes his fingers through Sherlock's hair and groans.

"Finish it," Sherlock demands raspily as he slides his fingers into the waistband and draws out John's weeping cock. The world stutters to a halt. He can feel Sherlock's fingers encircling his cock, the tendons, the phalanges and the metacarpals protruding out of his hand. Sherlock's hands have wrapped around his more than once, in the lab, in the car parking during various ways in which Sherlock had seduced him but never has he felt Sherlock's palm in such great detail, never dissected the anatomy of it. It's rough, calloused and delicate, like the sensitive quivering antennae of an insect. He wraps his smaller fingers around Sherlock's, showing him how to stroke him properly.

"Oh yes," John bites back a moan as he feels Sherlock's hot breath on his member, "like that. . . Suck," he prays, his heart stuttering all the way, damaging his ribs permanently. Sherlock looks absolutely filthy, his mouth a scanty centimetres away from the head. A tongue darts out and John goes absolutely still with attention, waiting for it to lick his head. He hears Sherlock chuckle throatily. He does not do anything like that.

"Finish your previous sentence first!" Sherlock deadpans with ragged breaths in between, while John tosses his head back and groans loudly. A hand curls around the nape of his neck and John forces him forward just like Sherlock had forced him. Sherlock gags a little and licks the flushed head only a bit. John whines in frustration. Nevertheless, he kisses the head and wraps his lips around it as much as he can and takes the head in his mouth, watching John's reactions like watching the progress of a synthesis.

"Don't say a wo-_ord!_" John finishes. There's no point in saying that, now that Sherlock had already silenced himself, wrapping his mouth, his frustrating, impossible mouth around the head of his cock. There's nothing to be done except threading his fingers in Sherlock's hair and to groan. Sherlock rewards him with a direct look drilling into his eyes and John feels his entire cock twitch and vibrate with mindless excitement when Sherlock speaks with John in his mouth.

"I won't."

The sight, the oh-so-glorious sight of Sherlock sitting on his knees, the tousled head between John legs sparks something deep in the origins of him. Sherlock looks up, his face completely ruddy, his lips darkened and wet with saliva and precome, his hollowed cheeks and the sight of the pink head disappearing inside Sherlock's mouth is something for which John would give away all his wealth to see again.

John rocks his hips up, feeling the dark, damp heat of Sherlock's mouth travelling up and down his cock. Sherlock is trying his best to suppress his gag reflex but John likes seeing him gag on it. He feels his cock hit the back of his throat occasionally and there's nothing to be done, nothing to be replied to because Sherlock has silenced himself. He can hear the sloppy sounds that Sherlock's mouth make and he adds some of his own. Sherlock gets more creative and dips his tongue into the perineum, licking a vulgar stripe from root to tip, swirling his tongue around his balls.

He has thought of this so many times, every once in a while when touching himself becomes a necessity, John thinks of Sherlock, Sherlock on top of him riding him hard and fast and impatient, the only way he knows, Sherlock under him, writhing, pleading, begging. Sherlock in university, sitting in the last bench of his lecture room, squirming, thinking of John's cock inside him even a week later and John glaring at him, knowing, and turning to the board when he feels himself going hard just at the memory. He has run it a hundred thousand times in his mind, so much that the real thing has become more distorted, _worse,_ much more perverted in his imagination.

John's the one doing begging now. He's trying to suppress his sounds, balling his fist into his mouth as Sherlock continues to blow him hard and hot. It's embarrassing really, those noises, and Sherlock tells his that he wants to hear it but John doesn't want to. He isn't complaining that Sherlock can't take the full length in his mouth, only for the sake of caution. That would be for some other time, when all this stops feeling so unreal. It does, it still feels unreal that Sherlock is the one lying between his legs and not some woman he has no time and consideration for. He continuously looks up, down in his direction to assure himself that it really is him, that he was the one causing him this nerve-wracking pleasure.

"You c-can't. . . touch yourself," John bites back a groan as Sherlock's suction decreases and slows down. There's indeed a wicked pleasure in masochism, and that's exactly what is doing now. He pulls Sherlock on top of him and kisses him hard, swirling their tongues around each other, feeling the sturdiness of his chest, of his heart beating into his palm. John can feel his own heart, can hear it in his ears, feel its pulse in his brain, temples, the tip of his ears, even his own cock. He's been hard for almost an hour now, and it's just so painful, not releasing it, the immense pressure.

He doesn't care if there's no condoms or no proper lube. He isn't patient enough to wait for those. He's going to fuck Sherlock right there, without it, without anything, using blood, saliva, precome whatever he can do, anything at his disposal.

"I'm going to fuck you now," John says, turning them over so that he's on top. John parts his legs and sits between them, licking his fingers and rubs them on his entrance. He can see Sherlock's breath hitching, can hear it, can feel it in the abrupt clenching and withdrawing before he has even put a finger inside. At the very slightest, Sherlock gives a nod and that's all John needs.

"I'm going to make you love it," John promises breathily, "I'm going to make you beg for it."

With that, he pushes a wet finger inside Sherlock, watching his face carefully. He wants to dig in more, and fuck Sherlock with his tongue if he can. Sherlock clenches around his finger and John can feel the shudder that runs through his body. He kisses his inner thigh, massaging the calf muscles, waits for him to get used to the feeling.

"I don't beg," his voice quivers. John fixes him with eyes that could burn a hole through steel. It's time that Sherlock knows what a penetrative stare really feels like. He goes deeper till he finds his prostate and rubs against it.

This triggers an instant reaction from Sherlock; his back arches up almost to a semicircle, his voice seems to break into several pieces as he cries, literally _cries_ out John's name. His thighs wrap around John again and he gives a bodily shudder against him. John takes the invitation and slides—inserts painfully—another finger into Sherlock. He squirms again, this time more prepared. He looks like a string about to snap into two.

John has never seen anything more gorgeous.

"You okay?" He asks Sherlock, rubbing the fingers inside him together, except that Sherlock is unreachable, unrecognisable to John, mouth hanging open, already beginning to rock on John's fingers, already beginning to fuck himself on them. Such a desperate little whore. Such a lovely, magnificent sight to behold. John revels in the knowledge that its only he who has seen Sherlock like this, in this state. They're in some part of universe where time doesn't work, where all the laws of physics fail spectacularly. Only Sherlock can do this to him. Sherlock can do anything, John knows. Sherlock is impossible, he can do the impossible. He always has.

John has a strong temptation to pinch himself, just to see whether this is a dream or not. A hoarse, choking voice drags him down, back on the carpeted floor of 221B.

"More," Sherlock-I-don't-beg-Holmes begs.

It is the most beautiful word in the whole dictionary.

John kisses his inner thighs, rubs his free palm against it, massages his calves, licks the lone circle sitting at the very centre of the tendon on his ankle. Pulling his cheeks apart, he inserts another finger. Three fingers now, slow as molasses.

The moment a third finger goes in, Sherlock lets out a little girlish squeal as it can be heard in his deep voice. John falls in love with that sound, makes Sherlock sound like a man completely undone. This is where he has Sherlock, with nothing left between them. This is how they're meant to be. Irreversibly entangled. John's a fool not to have seen it before. Sherlock is always right, he should've trusted him a little more. Maybe if he had, he wouldn't have missed out on this for so long.

As Sherlock fucks himself raw on John's fingers, clenching and relaxing around him, the motion trying to engulf John's arm, John inclines over him, pleasuring him ruthlessly and watching his eyes open and close like petals of a flower through night and day. He traces his tongue over every freckle on his creamy skin, all his previous hesitation having vaporised in the air. They have the whole night and the landlady's not there and Sherlock can make as many filthy, obscene noises as he wants to and John can listen all night, maybe even record them and listen to them later, or make Sherlock listen to them and see his face reddening with embarrassment.

Sherlock is trembling, closing his legs, trying to control himself from coming apart without John inside him. He's calling all sorts of broken versions of his monosyllabic name in it, he's close to sobbing, to pleading for release. John lowers himself on his knees and gives Sherlock a lick near his entrance, making Sherlock shiver with pleasure. He is tougher than John has estimated and John wants nothing more than to push him, to push Sherlock till he snaps, till he shatters every bone in his own body out of frustration.

"J-John. . . Please. . ." Sherlock is stuck between honouring the deal and pulling John's fingers out of him to control himself from leaking, and wanting John's entire arm up his arse. John enjoys his inner dilemma, he's sworn to make him suffer for making Sherlock suffer as well for not giving up on John. He is sworn to make Sherlock understand how one can be stuck between two choices, how he himself feels when he is alone in his room with him and resisting Sherlock's seduction, the only word 'professor' revolving in his head, the sound of it damning and imposing.

He cannot verbalise the sensations it arises within him to see the self-controlled youth debauched and moaning and so_ exposed. _Sherlock isalways the dominating entity, always the man who suffocates poor others like John by taking all the space and the air out of the room into which he languidly walks in, muttering and yelling "Bored!" and "BORED!" all over again and attracting attention to himself, but now he's determined to punish Sherlock to the inch of his life. He can keep the foreplay going on for hours, but his own needs were being neglected.

So much for not having sex for a whole thirty days. Or was it thirty one?

With a sharp intake of air, John pulls his fingers out of Sherlock and his dick out of his mouth Sherlock is _shining_ with sweat, his skin demanding to be touched even still. He looks so beautiful, open and ready for fucking, for taking, his whole body peppered with bites and bruises. He is panting and looking meaningfully—okay, a little stupefied, maybe—at John's crotch, propped up on his elbows. John drags his by his hips and spreads his legs apart. Sherlock's cock is almost blue from overstimulation. The realisation that he is going to make love to Sherlock, that in a few minutes time he is going to be inside him crashes over him, hard and heavy, like the entire sky is falling down on his shoulders. Well, let the sky crumble and fall on them. The part where Sherlock is a man is long gone. Sherlock is the limits to his rational thinking, he is everything good and true and brilliant that John has known in his life, he's a marvel in human flesh.

He's beautiful.

John doesn't want to think how Sherlock is going to react to John describing him as _that._

With a final kiss to the hair curling directly below his navel, he pushes the butt cheeks apart and places his legs over his shoulder at full right angles to Sherlock's torso, taking a last look at the man who has probably never had a cock inside him. He's waited too long to be careful, he's worried himself too much about what's going to happen. He has already gone too far. _You could be expelled and I would get sacked,_ echoes in his mind, but before he can grasp it at all, he presses a kiss to Sherlock's inner thigh and lines up his cock on his hole. Sherlock draws in a harsh breath and all thoughts of punishing him fly from John's mind.

"Shhh. . ." is all John can manage, "Sh-Sherlock, it's okay," he exhales in one breath, speaks with difficulty as John leans over him to cup his cheeks, "It's going to feel so good. . . once you get—you get used to me. . . you're going to love it, Sherlock, t-trust me. . . Shhh. . . Sherlock. . . just eyes on me, alright? Eyes on me. . . Just tell me when to stop, alright? Jesus Christ—"

Sherlock lets out a frustrated groan, which John can only translate as, "Just fuck me already!" Hearing profanity from Sherlock's pretty mouth is something so new and unprecedented and goddamned sexy that it snaps something in John. One arm wraps around a long leg over his shoulder, the left hand wraps around his cock. Sherlock extends his left hand to him and John takes it with his right, squeezing it, affirming it. He pauses his breathing and his heartbeat, looks down at his puckered hole, bends over him and pushes the head of his cock into him. He's tighter than any woman John has ever been in, so unyielding, disobedient.

John and Sherlock both let out a frustrated noise, and his time, John spreads his legs wider apart until the toes on Sherlock's feet are pointing at the two corners of the room. John grabs Sherlock's waist and pushes him harder onto his cock and this time, he can see Sherlock hold his breath but the little hole there is unyielding even after having opened up. Muttering a curse, John spits on his hand and lubes the head of his already leaking cock. He can hear distress in the grunt that Sherlock lets out, he can feel it in the sink of nails into his flesh as he presses down on Sherlock's abdomen and gives another thrust. There's a sudden slickness and a slight arch to Sherlock's back as the ring of tissue around John relaxes and pulls him into the heat, only the head but it's better than nothing at least.

John stiffens as if tased, his breathing resumes. He can feel Sherlock's thigh muscles clenching and tensing around his shoulders, as if to asphyxiate him. He can see it in the sudden rise of chest and the arch of Sherlock's back. He can hear the breathy moan that Sherlock lets out and see the grip on his hand tighten manifold. John's mouth is hanging open and he knows he probably looks like an idiot dog. He feels so much on edge that he can just grab his clothes and go and run ten laps of the entire London and still be hard by the time he returns.

He is inside Sherlock. For the very first time. Now he knows what 'inevitable' really means.

He can say that to himself a million times and the effect on his mind balancing on the tip of a pencil is still the same:

He looks at Sherlock expecting a scrunched-up face, only to see the makings of a smile blooming, of pure unadulterated happiness and triumph, John notes. Sherlock is taut as a string, waiting for the next thrust into him, to be defiled, to be owned properly. He has never seen Sherlock truly happy and he wants to extract that look from Sherlock until he can hardly bear it. So beautiful in his obedience, so happy to be fucked, his useless virginity taken away, John lets thoughts cross his mind that he would never in a more sober state. Sherlock is obedient only to him, listens only to him and it gives him such a brief, perverse thrill at being obeyed so absolutely that he just can't help such thoughts. The younger man is like a force of nature, always taking the social norms and twisting them to suit his own purposes. John very much doubts Sherlock's grasp of the concept of rules, at least outside of chemistry or physics.

John doesn't tell him, because Sherlock need not know, but he owns everything of John, even without having asked for it, instead of the other way round.

"Do I—do I look like. . . an idiot?" John asks him instead of the next thrust into him, his breath coming as shuddery, raspy gusts of complete carbon dioxide, no oxygen. He tenses, preparing to withstand the cutting edge of Sherlock's whip-fast sarcasm.

"Don't state the obvious, John," he growls, his toes curling as heat pooled into his whole body.

Slowly, he pushes inside with heat engulfing him inch by inch till Sherlock gives out a whimper into his neck and John stops right there. Sherlock's lips are trembling, begging to be kissed and John obliges, nuzzling his face against his hair and kissing him, dipping his tongue into the familiar, velvety sensation of Sherlock's mouth. Sherlock wraps his arms around John's neck and pushes forward with his tongue, as if telling him exactly how to fuck him. John is breathing with his mouth, all the while kissing him wherever he can reach in that state with his cock half-buried in him, the tight heat of Sherlock's hole surrounding his prick.

"John. . ." Sherlock bemoans, his throat feeling prickled. There's almost a permanent wrinkle on Sherlock's forehead, right over his eyebrows, whether out of the pain of being stretched beyond limit or out of frustration, John doesn't know. Perhaps some of both.

John tosses his head back and pushes himself inside slowly, taking all the time in the world, letting Sherlock adjust to the feel of him. He can feel Sherlock's iron grip on his rounded shoulders, bruising in his strength, white nails and pointed joints of his fingers burying into his skin. He pushes till he's buried to the hilt inside of him. Sherlock gives an involuntary shudder as John cherishes the feel of being one with him. It's so perfect, Sherlock shredding his lips with his teeth as he bites back a particularly obscene moan, gripping his arms, marking him with fingertips that would surely evolve into bruises the next day, his neck splotchy-red and fully exposed and his collarbones drawing his skin taut. John has his chin buried into his neck, eyes closed and panting out of breath. A hand curls around the nape of his neck and John is swirling his tongue around Sherlock's, his entire frame shivering, burning with pleasure.

"Ready?" John asks. It's crafted as a question and a prayer. Sherlock says yes to both, his eyes closed in spite of the general lack of beloved data it provides to him.

He draws out of the welcome heat a bit and gives another thrust, feeling Sherlock shiver against him in genuine distress this time but John doesn't stop and Sherlock doesn't make him. He simply feels the hard, rough pad of Sherlock's long, slender fingers press into him and nothing feels more intimate, more signature. Sherlock's nails are short, blunt on the left fingers and sharper on the right ones but his left fingers can bury in deeper, given the obvious strength required to press down on the strings of the violin. The fingers on the right press crescent-like welts into his flesh, sharp, hard nails that strum the strings in pizzicato notes whenever he must want his right hand to do something than nothing. John can feel fresh blood blooming on the side of his neck, he can feel the permanent dent that the violin strings have made on Sherlock's left fingers, he inhales the musky smell of his body, he can hear the little breathy sounds that Sherlock makes as he moves in and out of him. John is rutting against him, into him like a madman and Sherlock still screams to him to go harder on him. He can take it, John tells himself. Sherlock is so bloody persisting all the time, always wanting more from John, always.

"Sh-Sherlock. . ." John keeps articulating, rocking with him against the floor. His abdomen and arm muscles protest in tension as he looms over Sherlock. Wants to block the entire world out till it's only John and him, rocking together and trying to start the world back into rotation, having been the ones to make it stutter after all. John feels the tip of Sherlock's dick rubbing against his navel and the thought itself speeds him up. Sherlock's thighs are trying to compress his waist, his arms around John's neck as John stays a centimetre away from touching Sherlock's nose, looking into his eyes shamelessly as they're both aware of the slapping and the smacking of the hips of two bodies mingling into one. John has never felt more-clear headed, never felt so aware of everything around him, his senses have never been sharper. He is gripping Sherlock's waist like a sponge, pushing him in, alternating between drilling into Sherlock and fucking Sherlock on his dick.

John knows he is God-to-honest sobbing into Sherlock's neck, for God's sake, he's going out of his mind, crying shamelessly over and over again. He has never cried during sex but it's so hurtful to have all the pleasure in the world pooled up between the seam of their two bodies, from the head of his cock buried in Sherlock to the little bundle of nerves he is hitting aggressively over and over again. Sherlock's breathing, shallow and fast and precious, his jerky little movements surround John and he feels like he is in this deep subspace, like the weight of the entire ocean crushing down on him. . . unable to do anything than scream and not hear his own voice, unable to do anything than rock with Sherlock in harmony. . . unable to die with the soul-sizzling pleasure. He has dreamt of this, being unable to die, felt the dread of not being able to breath, only water flooding his lungs, instead it's the musky scent of Sherlock's brow, instead of water.

He has dreamt of this so many times, so overdue that he owes them now.

"John. . . I want to. . ." Sherlock begs again, and it's so wonderful, so salving, the rough sound of his voice, to know that the voice which cut across him in his class and threw him temper tantrums and disturbances had now completely lost the edge, the sarcasm, completely incapacitated. John is cradling Sherlock's head, looking ahead at the window without its curtains drawn in and seeing something entirely different. He can do anything for the man under him, pause an eclipse for him, move mountains for him, fill an entire desert with ocean for him, bring him the moons, the stars, whatever he asks for, anything at all.

"Kiss me, John," Sherlock lets out a strained whisper, wrapped in it a clear order. John can feel it in the sudden abruptness, the loss of tempo in his movements, the loss of proper speech leaking from his parting mouth. Sherlock is there, just there. Just one little push, one last thrust and he won't be able to hold any longer. How he loves that look on Sherlock's face, still keeping it in while his entire body is tethering to the exactly opposite goal. How Sherlock is under him and yet the dominant, controlling the rhythm. How he loves both the sides to Sherlock, both battling together, co-existing and showing valiantly in his nature. How he hates him. How he wants him, still.

John kisses him, grinding his cock into him, hard and frenzied, thrusts and kisses him, cruel and passionate. He wishes he can go on, pleasure this beautiful man all night and all day but he can't. He's close himself. He's never tortured himself so brutally, he's never tortured anyone like that, but then, no one's tortured him like Sherlock has. Sherlock's freckles have become darker, there's blood coagulating near the hard nubs of his dusky nipples and in his armpits. John wipes the sweat from Sherlock's forehead and feels the drops of his own sweat fall on him.

He has never seen him more perfect.

"John, I'm going to. . ."

Yes, please. Say that, complete that, John doesn't know whether he's saying it aloud or not. He doesn't care, because Sherlock gets his message either way even if he's lost in complete pleasure. He shudders and shivers around him, over him, under him. With him.

". . . come."

John lets out a positively inhuman sound at that as the whole moment for which he has been building till now crashes apart, and John has never been more amenable to destruction. He is still dazed that he somehow doesn't collapse on top of Sherlock when he comes apart right in front of John, laid bare as John feasts his eyes on the filthy sight of Sherlock's cock spilling semen all over his stomach, the smearing of his come between their skin, on his stomach as the inner walls of his arsehole clench around his cock, tight and painful. The heat infuses from Sherlock's body into John again. Sherlock's thighs clasp around his waist and he wraps his arms around John's shoulders Sherlock's breath is still going up and coming down like a sine wave as John plunges into him for the final time, gradually losing the rhythm he had built up so studiously.

"Sherlock," is the only word on his lips as he fills the deep insides of Sherlock's body with his ejaculate and buries himself inside him, the tightness, the dripping perfection of him. The sky comes apart over them but Sherlock is there, with him facing it all with him, together. Always together, nothing keeping them apart, ever apart. His throat is hoarse with shouting and yelling and every single cell in his body is screaming with protest. He closes his eyes and lets himself go away, float into wherever Sherlock will take him. Sherlock is panting on his skin, still scalding, steam-hot and his mouth is open again, his lips cracking with lack of moisture on them. John is still half-praying, half-screaming and full crying. He has never ever felt an orgasm of that intensity tear through him like that, not with that animalistic fury. Ever.

It feels insanely good, to feel his seed dripping out of Sherlock, to have collapsed on top of the man who was a virgin half an hour ago. John tries not to think of that, otherwise he might start regretting what they had made together. He kisses his lips, his nose, his belly, his hips and finally his spent cock. He collapses on top of him again, still wanting not to pull out of him. He presses his face to Sherlock's neck slick with sweat and stays there, feeling Sherlock's chest falling and rising and finding himself being risen with the ascent of his chest. He splays a palm on his chest and the other arm under Sherlock's head, supporting him and burying himself in the sweet, pungent scent of him.

The whole room, the whole sitting room with an open door and windows without blinds, is full of the scent of musk and sex and adrenaline.

Eventually he hears Sherlock murmur something incoherent and John pulls himself out of the comfortable heat of his body. He grabs his underwear to clean himself and Sherlock up, but Sherlock only pulls him by the arm on top of him.

"I—That was. . ." He begins, babbles really like he _has_ to say something, like he has been assigned a duty by some stone-age God to _speak_ every time, but John shuts him up by slipping to his side and placing his thigh over himself and pulling him into himself. He trails his fingertips over Sherlock's mouth and Sherlock's hazy eyes watch his face while his eyelashes flutter as if wanting to snap close. John's cock is still aching but he feels so spent and satisfied that he ignores it in the aftermath. He tries to control the breath which hitches as Sherlock snakes a tongue out and touches John's fingertips with it, poking and testing and at times kissing them. John simply watches him at work, settling into an arm that Sherlock provides him. John trails his other hand along his chest, his mouth still open in wonder, still not believing that he and Sherlock had just had sex.

"You alright?" John asks him after a long, long time, after everything's regrettably turned to normal, after thoughts are starting to buzz back in the quietude of his head. He scans Sherlock's face for any residual discomfort, which is apparent as Sherlock grimaces a little. Tries to coax it away with a kiss as he leans in and wipes the sweat away from Sherlock's forehead, brushing his curls back. How this night had promised to be, and how it is now. Warm, lying beside a completely nude Sherlock beyond the normal norms of perfect.

"You. . . could've been. . . gentle," Sherlock reveals his fingers coated a little amount of blood and John is alarmed, "and used a condom. . . and lube. . . and not torn. . . the tissue. . ."

He's hurt Sherlock. He doesn't even lay a finger on him out of anger or frustration, and now Sherlock is bleeding because of him. He did say 'harder' even when John didn't want to go as harder on him. He gulps heavily and guiltily.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be harsh. . ." John mumbles with uncharacteristic softness, "But it was good?"

He needs this, needs to hear it, to hear that it felt equally good to Sherlock, that this just wasn't a sticky account of meaningless pleasure. He can hear Sherlock heave an exaggerated sigh and he looks up tiredly.

"Ow, I'm sore. . ." Sherlock complains indignantly. John looks up sharply from his comfortable repose in the crook of Sherlock's neck, wants nothing but to punch him and suddenly doesn't feel all that sorry for making him bleed. But he does move closer to Sherlock. He does feel comfortable and grounding, the intimacy of it no longer arousing. Sherlock's eyes have become the same fierce silver-grey, and he too, has become the same simpering narcissistic youth.

"Stop complaining!" His intentions fall flat as his tone emerges as bordering on fond, "Don't tell me you didn't enjoy every second of that!"

"This isn't just _'Ow, I'm sore'_ sore," Sherlock snaps, and John wants to pin him down again and fuck the consciousness out of him, "It's _'Ow, I need to go to the ER and wear diapers for the rest of my life'_ sore."

They share a smile at that, too spent to laugh at that. John can't believe it. He's laughing. Of all the things that can be done in the aftermath, he's laughing with Sherlock at his unreasonableness and the sound of his laughter so different, so beautiful in its sonority that John can't help but feel a sudden rush of affection towards him. Giving in to his instincts, he wraps his arm around him and gives Sherlock an uncharacteristically affectionate squeeze, something he would never have done with other women. He was a man, wasn't he? But being with Sherlock, in his arms was so much high above all that.

He watches Sherlock's pulse beating in his temple, and the way a drop of sweat splits into two when it passes over it. He doesn't realise he's staring. The sharp whip of Sherlock's snap breaks over him, waking him rather cruelly from his daydreaming. "What was that for?"

John shrugs. How is he supposed to explain something instinctive which came over him for a second to someone like Sherlock, who thinks everything through? He simply takes Sherlock's face in his palms and kisses his pale sweaty forehead tenderly in response. "You need to down the thermostat. . . and maybe replace the carpet. . . yeah." He points at the come accumulating on it, but Sherlock isn't paying attention to him. Like always.

"And you insist that you aren't gay," Sherlock exclaims wryly. John chooses not to comment. Because he isn't. He isn't gay. He wants to tell Sherlock something along the lines of, "Then maybe, you're a girl in disguise", but then he knows what will come out of Sherlock's mouth.

_All evidence to the contrary, John, do keep up._

Or something like that. And John really doesn't want to ruin the moment with banter. And Sherlock always expects an answer. That's what John's learnt till now.

"I'm not. . ." he mutters vaguely. They're quiet, the whole flat's quiet, which leads John to wonder how much racket they've made and how many families they've kept out of their beds. John tries not to blink at a skull on the mantelpiece staring eerily at his cock. He runs his hand on Sherlock's back. He likes the curve of it, convex at the shoulders, followed by almost depressed at the waist and that spectacular arse beyond that. Sherlock is looking at him, blinking and licking his lips, and John stares back at him. It's like staring into the sun; the desire to look away from the attention is immense but John still keeps his eyes fixed on his. It again makes him realise how close they are.

"But you're gay for me."

". . .Maybe."

John casts his eyes over Sherlock. He's positively glowing, the sweat and semen having cooled up in his abdomen.

"You. . ." John begins rather awkwardly, "were a virgin."

"Yes," Sherlock sounds like a primary teacher trying to teach John A for Apple, B for Ball. John loses all thought of ever gritting his teeth when Sherlock continues further, "Does it make any difference?"

"N-no, of course not," John shakes his head, posing it as a prompt for Sherlock to tell him whether it made any difference to him. When the prompt doesn't translate to Sherlock, he speaks further, drawing in a guilty breath, "We should've planned it at least."

Sherlock lets out a chuckle. "Like that was going to happen!"

John knows what Sherlock means. He doesn't reply, instead opens his mouth for a kiss again. Tongues meet, teeth click, mouths melt together as if he and Sherlock were fusing together by a strange composition of semen, sweat and intimacy, lips and fingers travel over each other as John's smaller fingers slot perfectly in Sherlock's. Holding hands, kissing slowly, honey-like slow, like they have all the time in the world. They did actually, John thinks, they've got the whole night. He grips his shoulders and moves down, nibbling and licking a trail along the smooth curve of Sherlock's neck, running his tongue over him, drawing small circles over and punctuating them with gentle kisses. He feels the variation in Sherlock's breath and feels his own heart quicken in sporadic thrusts.

"Don't forget it, Mr. Holmes," John pants, breaking away. Sherlock's eyes flutter open and this time John sees how dark, predatory his eyes have become. It's wonderful to see the increase in the size of his pupils, with acute want written in them, like they can consume John anytime. John moves from his abdomen to teasing his inner thigh provocatively. It's like the moon engulfing the sun during an eclipse, like Sherlock's pupils engulf his irises, till only the corona remains.

"What?" Sherlock utters a little noise in the disguise of the monosyllabic question.

"I meant it. Every surface of the house. _Raw and senseless_, Mr. Holmes."

Like a dam whose walls crush into dust and sand and cement after having tested beyond its strength, Sherlock groans and lunges forward to capture John's lips in a passionate snog.

"Shower?" He spares John a mischievous grin and utters into his mouth, giving his cock a telltale twitch.

"Oh God, yes!"

John has never known a more comfortable place than wherever he is right now, warm, solid and a little on the firm and soft side too. There's something hard poking into the side of his cheek, and something that feels like cartilage and. . . hair. . . hmm, feels nice, face full of hair, short, curly. . . whoops, one of them is tickling up his nose and John doesn't sneeze, not wanting to wake from this amazing dream. The skin on his neck tingles as he feels hot breath falling on it. . . ooh, definitely feels good, feels amazing in fact, triggers goosebumps all over him.

He remembers the last night, the mind-blowing sex with Sherlock, on the floor, in the shower, against the kitchen table, and finally in his bed. The first one was decidedly brilliant, but the one that John will always remember as his best was the one with Sherlock on top of him, riding his cock, moaning like a man-whore, making racket with an assortment of curses and profanity that John had never known could exist. Sherlock was definitely better on top, he decides, and definitely spectacular as the disobedient one. He opens an eye and squints, scrunching his face up against the brightness of daylight. His mouth feels fuzzy, his muscles are sore from not moving at all during the night, and he is relatively certain he has an enormous and crusty spatter of dried drool on the side of his face.

He feels marvellous.

Sherlock is still asleep beside him, looking so human, so vulnerable, so lovely. They'd fallen asleep curled around one another desperately, as if they couldn't quite believe that they will both still be there when they wake up the next morning. John smiles to himself and moves closer to the comfortable warmth radiating from Sherlock's body. He's going to sleep till Sherlock's awake too and then he's going to kiss him good morning, but only if Sherlock likes such things, or maybe he'd like to brush his teeth first. He won't want the bad breath in his mouth—

And then he realises what he has done.

Gulping, John opens his eyes slowly, as slowly as he can as if he has got a serpent with a literal death stare waiting for him on the other side. Only years of one-night stands in his university time keep John from leaping out of bed, keeping his reaction instead to the slightest stiffening of his body.

Sherlock is laid out in front of him, still sleeping, still warm, only a bedsheet covering up his modesty and with thousands of bites and welts on his body on display, incriminating, daring, angry, needy as if asking John "did you miss me?" John removes his hand from Sherlock's butt, his soul collapsing inwardly. He tries his best not to move as the most horrible of realisations crashes over him.

He's buggered one of his students in his own flat. Over the whole night. Four times. All four times without protection.

He fucking cried during sex.

He doesn't know which one is worse.

On the bright side, a stupid, kindergarten part of John's brain tells him, at least Sherlock wouldn't get pregnant.

John lies there, watching the sleeping marvel that was Sherlock, the soft streams of air coming from his lips, his whole body marked by John as a proof of what they've had together, what they'd made together. John remembers having kissed him there, right under his jaw, above the stable carotid artery. John remembers having licked and sucked on Sherlock's nipples, which had been hard as buttons under his crushing, naughty pinch. He remembers the feel of Sherlock's mouth around his cock, the feel of his lips on his throat, the musky smell of his neck. He remembers the feel of Sherlock clenching around him, the heat and the passion so all-consuming—

Sherlock is his student, John reminds himself with a hard heart. This is neither appropriate nor legal.

It is legal, the back of his mind which suspiciously sounds like Sherlock answers, Sherlock is not a minor. He's of age consent. He'd never sleep with him if he weren't of age consent, of course. Oh, God knows he wants to bend over Sherlock and kiss him into good morning like he once attempted to do, wants to remove that bedsheet and start his day with a good fucking, he looks so absolutely delectable in his vulnerability that it makes John shudder bodily to think that it is all for him.

No time better than now.

Now's the time for rational thinking, John decides.

Good Lord, what has he done? And that too in his fully sober state? There's no excuse, he can't say that he slept with Sherlock because he was high or he was drunk. He knows Sherlock, Sherlock would never sleep with him if John were drunk. He'd probably put John in a cab and threaten the cabbie by telling him that he _will_ call the cab company to tell them that he's been robbed if he doesn't drop John off at his place.

_You'd be expelled and I'd be sacked_ runs over and over in his head like a record set to repeat, sounding daunting and scary now. What was he thinking? It's just been six months into his career as a teacher in a decent uni and he ends up sleeping with Sherlock.

The fact that he is repeating in his head over and over again doesn't dilute its potency even a bit. It sounds only worse with each iteration. Even if no one's going to find this out, Sherlock is going to pester him till John goes mad and has to leave the uni or he tells Sherlock that it's all over. He can just imagine both the scenarios easily. He can leave St. Bart's, he knows that. He has been offered a position in another university with the almost same salary but with more benefits. . .

But with no Sherlock, his mind reminds him. He hates his job, and Sherlock is the only reason he's still functioning as a professor, otherwise he would've fallen apart long ago, perhaps the second month itself. Sherlock is the adhesive holding the pieces of his life together, the reason he can sleep without having to think of Harry and liver failure the first thing next day, the reason he secretly looks forward to those Mondays and Thursdays and those self-study hours which are more like sitting-together-and-engaging-in-banter-and-too-much-flirting hours and goes through the entire week recalling those hours to himself. Leaving Sherlock, going to a place without his presence there. . . John has entirely forgotten what it is like without him.

He secretly dates Sherlock, the whole thing comes down like a house of cards in a hurricane. Walls have ears, there's a saying. Someone _will_ find out, and Sherlock is a very infamous character in the utterly hallowed and homophobic halls of St. Bart's. John will be sacked, that's for sure, and moreover, Sherlock will be expelled—

Sherlock stirs a little against him, and moves a little away from John, exposing his neck up for taking as if he somehow knows that John's up and is alternating between ways to forget about this and about fucking Sherlock into the mattress. He has to get up, get out of there, away from Sherlock's suffocating presence, to somewhere which is conducive to brain processes in general. He can't let that happen, he's got to find a way to be around Sherlock without reminding himself of this, _this,_ whatever it is. He wishes uselessly Sherlock could just listen to him and back the fuck down. But no, the time for that is long gone. Sherlock is obviously going to expect something. And that something is what daunts John the most. John will tell him that he can't be with him and the next thing John knows, he's confusedly shaking hands with a Sherlock who's just struck his name off the rolls and claiming that he knows everything there is to study and that John needn't feel guilty. John knows that's the most probable thing Sherlock will end up doing because he's suggested that a million times and John's diverted the subject away from his mind frantically in the hope that the idea will not make home in Sherlock's brain, with the intention that Sherlock will forget about leaving the university.

What's he going to do when Sherlock graduates, even if _this_ somehow goes on in an hypothetical universe? Because even if he can't leave Sherlock, Sherlock would have to leave him. What's going to happen after three years when he sees Sherlock toss his mortarboard hat up in the air along with Ms. Hooper, with the other graduates? What's he going to do then? How's he going to live after that? How's he going to teach after that? Teaching's the only thing that comes close to real world because he's absolutely not going to lock himself up inside a room and live the life of a scientist. There's no use of his Ph. D. That's why he never wanted Sherlock to come close to him even though he loathed the distance. He was better off with boring and mundane. How's he going to live after three years when he knows that there won't be any Sherlock sitting in his classroom, making rude comments on how his class was boring and how he needed to shove it up his behind?

Why did he have to get involved with a student of all people? In this. _This._ John is afraid to even call it something, to even say it aloud by name. What was this? The calm before the storm? A one-night stand? With Sherlock? He can't possibly do this to him.

The frustrating _this_ drops in again.

He hates this _this._

John sets to the next mission of extracting himself from Sherlock's bed. It's sort of coir under it, firm and yet yielding under him. John has to keep his eyes fixed on Sherlock for any reactions and not the little bites and welts and scratches. Sherlock appears to be perfectly asleep, his breathing even and the rise and fall of his chest fascinating to behold. Of course he would be asleep, its only six in the morning and the cheeky devil's probably tired to the bone after their activities last night. The entire bed seems like a minefield, the slightest trigger can set Sherlock right off sleep and into questions that John doesn't want to answer, doesn't know the answer to.

Sherlock lets out a sleepy sigh and John's heart melts at the sight. Sherlock looks so beautiful like this, so ageless and innocent and trusting John, it's such a rare sight, seeing Sherlock sleeping peacefully instead of the manic youth alternating between bursts with energy and utter suavity.

If he tells Sherlock that this is all over. . . he can't, of course he can't. . . he just can't, he can never tell him that. That would be misusing the trust that Sherlock has placed in him, that would be throwing it away in a bin, disrespected, like a toy used for taking his virginity. It had been such an honour to be his first and now if he leaves, Sherlock will never forgive him for it, he'll hate him, he'll hate him forever. He'll never look at John the same way, never the same playful wink or the one-of-a-kind penetrative death stare, is he prepared for that? Going back to only a teacher, knowing that Sherlock's in the room and ignoring him like he doesn't exist, he can't take that, not after _this_.

He can't do that to Sherlock. Can't pretend this was nothing. Because it wasn't. Isn't.

He slips from Sherlock's side and lets himself slide to the floor noiselessly, praying in his heart that Sherlock doesn't wake up. His paranoid mind is already starting to infer that Sherlock must be awake, and that he's just pretending to be asleep to know John's real intentions and that he might wake any time and give John a heart failure. He snatches a rogue bedcover, wrapping it around himself as a sort of a shield and bolts from the room without a last look at Sherlock and without noting the colour of the room in which he has spent the best part of his life in. No time for such sentimental thoughts. None at all.

He pointedly avoids looking at the bathroom as he passes it, or the kitchen, or even the couch and the floor. Once might be dismissed as mistake, twice might be dismissed as simple, crazy libido but four times? Four fucking times? What the hell is four times and that too, sobered? Even a drunk can't go more than one-and-a-half.

John wraps the bedcover around him securely, straining his ears for any movement, any noise downstairs. The landlady is back, he can hear the wind chimes near an open window, can hear the hiss of a kettle and padded footsteps, it's so deadly quiet upstairs. Any moment, Sherlock would be up and then—

Sherlock would be up.

He snatches his underwear and his denim trousers, all clothes still lying in different parts of the apartment, reminding John of everything, loud and blaring and accusing. Without another word or thought, he puts his undershirt on and the shirt. Gets his shoes somehow in his feet, and leaves before he has to face Sherlock, leaves without fixing his hair or even a glance at himself in the mirror.

Leaves with belt and socks and jacket rolled up in a ball under his arm. On foot. The way he came.

Putting space between himself and Sherlock, the space he hates. He needs time, time to think, and moreover, time away from Sherlock.

From all _this._


End file.
